LORING – "Dropped like a bad habit," as he put it, Kyle Wasson was among a “small group” of Verizon customers who learned recently they would no longer be covered by the wireless giant as of Oct. 17.

Wasson, a customer for 8 or 9 years, received a letter from the company reading, in part: “We will no longer offer service for the numbers listed above since your primary place of use is outside the Verizon Wireless network” and “we discovered you are using a significant amount of data while roaming off the Verizon Wireless network."

Wasson had unlimited data, which isn’t available with his new provider, Havre-based Triangle Mobile, though he said otherwise their service will be better. He lives in Loring, which is north of Malta and about 15 miles south of the Canadian border.

Brandi Horn of Harlem said she was devastated to be dropped.

"There is no better service in rural Montana than Verizon," she said. "It's going to be hard finding an affordable and high-coverage service now."

Sue Hagen of Scobey said after she got the dropped notice she called Verizon and learned 19,000 clients were booted.

Verizon spokeswoman Meagan Dorsch said a “small group of customers” had been notified Verizon would stop providing service for them.

“This only affects a few people who primarily roam on other networks and does not affect customers who primarily use Verizon’s own network,” she said.

In an email, Dorsch said the 19,000 clients Hagen was told are being dropped by Verizon is not an accurate number. She said the number of customers being dropped is just a fraction of that number, but she declined to say how many Verizon customers will have their accounts dropped by the company.

“We’re providing advance notice to these customers so they have plenty of time to port their wireless number to another company before their Verizon wireless service ends," Dorsch said. “We regularly review accounts with data use that primarily takes place outside of the Verizon network.”

An RV Mobile Internet Resource Center article reported that in some rural areas, Verizon customers were roaming on regional carriers without realizing it.

"But with the return of official 'unlimited' data plans, Verizon has discovered some customers using extreme amounts of data in these roaming areas - and now Verizon is cracking down to put a stop to this. But rather than doing so by enforcing the fine print usage limits - Verizon is canceling accounts entirely," according to the article.